The Sniper Group Assignment
· On your own, respond to the journal question on page 472. Share your answers with your group.
· With your group, answer the five Textual Consideration Questions. Record your answers either in a notebook or on your netbook. Make sure that you label your assignment answers and save them. We will discuss the answers as a class.
1. Analyze the opening paragraph of the story to discuss setting and atmosphere.
a. How does O’Flaherty use setting in the opening paragraph and throughout the story.
2. Observe O’Flaherty’s frequent use of irony in “The Sniper,” and analyze its effects on the story’s meaning, style, and tone.
a. Cite examples from the text in your written answer.
3. Investigate the effects of the narrative point of view on the development of the story.
a. To what extent does the narrator’s stance affect your evaluation of the sniper?
b. Is the sniper given a voice of his own in the story? Explain.
4. Chart the stages in the sniper’s responses to his situation, and evaluate their plausibility.
a. Argue whether he is a political “fanatic” as the text suggests, or whether the reader can detect glimpses of his humanity behind his political commitment as a sniper.
5. Identify some of the internal and external actions in the plot development of the story.
a. How does O’Flaherty combine both actions?
b. What role does the “old woman” play in the story?
c. Explain the meaning of the narrator’s final words about the woman.
· With your group, answer the Cultural Contexts questions. Record your answers either in a notebook or on your netbook. Make sure that you save your answers. We will discuss our answers as a class.
1. To what extent do you share the sniper’s fanatic commitment to a political cause?
a. Argue in favor of or against the position he takes to become a sniper.
b. You may engage in an imaginary dialogue with him about his commitment.
2. Working with your group, examine how the violence of civil wars, like that of the Republicans and the Free Staters in Ireland (1921), compare to the violence that results from war among nations.
a. Can your group reach a consensus about whether young people today are willing to die for their country or their religion?
· Go to mrs-sullivan.com. Click on Literature.
· Open up the Sniper Study Guide (word document).
· Answer the questions with your group, making sure that you fill in your own answers on your netbook.
· Save your work to use to prepare for a quiz or test.